RAJNATH SINGH'S LUDICROUS LINGUISTIC EXCURSION

Home minister Rajnath Singh said on November 26 that  "secular is the most misused word in the country." According to him the preferred Hindi translation of the word 'secular' in the Constitution should be Panth nirpesksh or 'sect neutral' and not dharm nirpesksh or 'religion neutral'. Is  Singh's linguistic excursion valid? The word 'secular' is defined in most dictionaries 'as not concerned with or devoted to religion': it does not limit its meaning to sects because these are just subdivisions of religions.

At first glance reducing the meaning of a word from the general to the particular is plain ludicrous. But look closely. What Singh was attempting to do was not to show his erudition as a linguist; he was lighting the fuse to steer the debate to honour Ambedkar and the Indian Constitution in order to discuss, debate, defame, and destroy the importance of the word 'secular' in this document.  If Singh had his way then the Indian state would reduce itself to the role of an umpire between sects, denominations, and schisms; between Shaivites and Vaishnavites, Sunnis and Shias, Catholics and Protestants, and many, many, more. Instead of good old fashioned precision that the country and its legal system have accepted we would have got a lot of hot air, dank, disagreeable, and leading to discordance. Singh's ludicrous linguistic excursion was  to rekindle the NDA's attempt of 1998 - 2004 to refashion the Constitution. 

There were no takers for Singh's ploy. Narendra Modi himself put a stop to this play (because he needs a less combative Parliament) by  describing the Constitution as India's holy book and Sonia Gandhi made a reasoned defence against the attack on the principles, including secularism, enshrined in this document. In the light of Singh's attempt to deny the word 'secular' it's true meaning, one must thank Indira Gandhi for the foresight to buttress the Preamble of the Constitution by defining India as a "sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic" through the 42nd Amendment of 1976.

A perennial argument that the BJP has used is that secularism need not be stressed because India is a tolerant country and Hinduism preaches and practises tolerance. This is a myth. Every religion differentiates between 'Us' and 'Them'. In the annals of warfare, religious wars to determine the superiority of the Us against the Them occupy a prominent and bloody position. But unlike other religions Hinduism is the only major religion which also differentiates between its own members or followers on the dubious basis of caste as opposed to just class. Hindus 'tolerate' caste by ignoring the lives of those who belong to castes different from theirs. Indifference rather than tolerance is the distinguishing trait of Hinduism. Unlike many well-meaning intellectuals who stress the inherent tolerance of Hinduism because they have never had to cope with mind-numbing indifference, Gandhiji understood it. This is the reason that he made the eradication of untouchability a major aspect of his political work and that of the Indian National Congress. He instinctively understood that without fighting untouchability it would be impossible to present a unified India against the British empire. On the other hand, Ambedkar  exhorted his followers to leave Hinduism and embrace Buddhism because he was convinced that the ingrained indifference of the upper caste Hindus holds no hope for the untouchables. Whether Gandhiji and Ambedkar were fully successful or not is another question. But the undeniable fact is that they made untouchability a politically incorrect term, much like the American civil rights movement trashed the words Negro, Nigger, and Black. Pushing words that have been around for centuries out of a society's daily usage is not an inconsiderable achievement.

The discussion in Parliament on November 26 was to commemorate the Constitution and its framer, Ambedkar on his 125th birth anniversary. This is chronologically wrong on two counts. First, Ambedkar was born on 14 April 1891, hence his 125th birth anniversary would be next year April not November this year. Secondly, as Sitaram Yechuri pointed out in his lucid speech only the draft of the Constitution was signed on November 26, 1949. Part XXII, Clause 394 of the draft said that the "commencement" of the Constitution would be from 26 January 1950. That date was chosen in order to commemorate the declaration of January 26, 1930 that the aim of the Indian freedom struggle was Purna Swaraj or complete independence. The declaration was made by Jawaharlal Nehru at the Lahore conference of the Indian National Congress. 

Singh was not the first in the sangh parivar that has juggled with the word 'secular'. Years before Singh, the RSS ideologue M.S.Golwalkar, Guruji to his followers, had given the version of what secularism means in his book Bunch of Thoughts:

"A dubious argument that is repeated ad nauseam is that the concept of Hindu Rashtra is against 'secularism'. ... if 'secularism' is to mean only the mundane things of life and something divorced from the higher and nobler attributes of the spirit, as it is sometimes made out to be, then we will not touch it even with a barge-pole. If, however, 'secularism' is to mean, as it ought to, not anti-religion but scope and opportunity for every religious persuasion to grow, and restraining of one religion from pouncing upon another, then that is undoubtedly in tune with the spirit of Hindu Rashtra." ( Part Two - The Nation And Its Problems, XIV. Uniqueness of Hindu Rashtra.)

A political state where "every religious persuasion" has "scope and opportunity to grow" sounds very nice and persuasive. That is until you notice that the state in question is the Hindu Rashtra which is quite different from an Indian Rashtra or state. The Hindu Rashtra according to practically any authoritative text is headed by a Kshatriya King, anointed and advised by Brahmins, protected both in defence and offence by other non-royal Kshatriyas, supported by the wealth generated by the Vaishyas, and the labour of the Sudras. This is nothing but the Varna system where the 'untouchables', including Ambedkar, primus inter pares or first among equals who headed the drafting committee that gave us the Indian Constitution described by Modi as our "holy book", will be perpetually kept out in the cold. It is the chronic divisiveness in India or what Ambedkar described as a society "so full of inequities, so full of inequalities, discriminations, and other things, which conflict with our fundamental rights", that made it a necessity to keep the state above  all matters religious, or secular.

Assuming that what Golwalkar had in mind was not the classic form of the Hindu Rashtra, a monarchy, the fact remains that his secular state is a Hindu state. The Indian Constitution guarantees in its Preamble, "Liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship". That is the nearest it comes to the question of religion other than in the Seventh Schedule, List III, Concurrent List,  Clause 28, where it deals with religious endowments, quite a few of them inherited from the princely kingdoms. Our Constitution's reference to religion is brief and succinct: citizens have the freedom to practise any faith and the Indian Rashtra has nothing to do with it unless it is a law and order problem. 

That the Home minister of India does not understand this, is the real problem.

MODI'S STRANGE AFFLICTION

Narendra Modi has a strange affliction. He gets verbal diarrhoea when his feet touches foreign soil but is constipated for words when he returns to India after the laborious task of acquiring frequent flier miles. His first reaction  to the lynching of a Muslim on the suspicion that he was eating beef was that it was 'unfortunate'. The second comment was a real tear jerker: it was 'saddening'. Both the comments came much after the victim was buried, his family evacuated from the village, and enough venom has been spewed by Union ministers and other stormtroopers of the Sangh parivar.  

An 'unfortunate, saddening' incident is when you miss your bus and arrive late for a job interview. What happened in Dadri was 'murder most foul'. The climate of violence and hatred to perpetuate this horrendous act and the assassinations of writers and thinkers in other parts of India has been created by the propagandists of the parivar. Modi is the public face of the parivar.  To that extent he is morally culpable.

THE ACHILLES HEEL OF THE SANGH PARIVAR

In the Mahabharata Yudhisthira led the Pandavas to victory  leaving much of the heavy lifting to his brothers and the divine help, Krishna. In this time and age the Modi government does not have any such luck. The duplicate or ersatz Yudhisthira  that the government picked to lead the Pune film institute is being worsted by the students with a lot of support from the public and media. And no one is doing the heavy lifting for Modi & Co.; not even its in-house spin doctor Arun Jaitley. In fact the only defence of Gajendra Chouhan has come from himself in the form of a plaintive cry: "give me a chance!" Hardly a dialogue that is kingly much less acceptable given the advisability of allowing a ham to strut upon a stage once occupied by the great names of Indian cinema.

The problem is not that the BJP has chosen a member or supporter of the sangh parivar to head a government body or organisation. All parties in power do this; it is the price we pay for governance. In democracies the choices are open and subject to criticism in the public domain; in totalitarian societies they are never commented upon. Often these appointments are sinecures; but in some cases they do carry responsibilities. Hence it is important that while the ruling party regrettably stuffs these posts with its own people it does not impose upon the country just any Tom, Dick, and Harry or a Yudhishthira. The party should place a premium on competence while complying with its requirement of political loyalty. While the appointments to head the Pune film institute, the National Film Development Corporation and the anti-democratic Censor Board get full marks on the political loyalty scorecard, the limited track record of the appointees do not inspire confidence on the question of competence.

The strangest part of this selection process is that with the whole wide  world of Indian cinema available to it, the sangh parivar ended up with these three: an actor whose field is limited to mostly serials and bit roles in films that have sunk without a trace; another who 

believes that a loud voice and muscle flexing can substitute for acting and who has little experience of finance or even the business of making and selling a movie but has a track record in doing charity; and finally, a producer whose only claim to fame is as a propagandist for Modi and a maker of truly forgettable B grade films. Despite all the managerial skills displayed by the BJP its headhunters has had access to Teams B to Z of Indian cinema!

Most commentators have remarked upon this and those like the Pune students who will be directly affected by the choice have taken to the streets in protest. Rightly so. However there is a deeper meaning to BJP's silly exercise of power. The mastery and manipulation of the social media have come up against the hard reality that the sangh parivar has little support amongst the elite, the creative and intellectual areas of Indian society. Whether it is cinema, history or education the party's choices are confined to those in Teams B to Z because it can't find anyone in the A team who will broadly agree with its so-called ideology. The reason is that this ideology is just a collection of myths and wishful thinking cloaked in simplistic religious slogans which cannot bear the light of reason.

The paucity of intellectual support is the Achilles heel of the Modi government and the sangh parivar. Because votes can only get you power; to govern you need the support of the elite in the civil society and not just business people who only look at balance sheets. Vajpayee knew this and if the Modi government has to get the support of the Indian elite it needs to move away from the constricted world view of the RSS and its khaki knicker klan.

 

ONE YEAR AFTER AND MODI'S DILEMMA SET TO WORSEN

When Modi completes one year in office today he would have accrued the maximum frequent flier points among any living or dead prime ministers. That uncertain distinction was worsened by the prime minister's really bad taste in telling NRIs that for the past sixty years Indians were shameful of being born in India! Losing his bearings in the miasma of his own rhetoric Modi forgot that out of the 60-odd years nearly six the prime minister was AB Vajpayee the recipient of the Bharat Ratna this year!

Modi also conveniently forgot that his rhetoric was a slander on foreign soil of all the institutions like parliament, judiciary, civil service, military, and media that have flourished here, "warts and all" for sixty years because of these prime ministers and the governments they led. Modi's problem is that he believes that India began with him.

The root cause of this illusion is his ego. An extreme example of that was his decision to wear a jacket with his name embroidered in place of stripes. To make it unforgettable the name, Narendra Damodhar Modi, was spelled out in full much like how mothers make tiny tots wear to lower KG school. Our media mangled the English language by calling it a monogram because, a monogram is actually just initials and not a full-blown name which no one who has any sense of style would display many times over on their torso.

In the Westminster cabinet system of government which we follow the prime minister is primus inter pares or first among equals. Modi has replaced this principle with "l'etat, c'est Moi" or "the State, that is Me", and the key to realising this is the PMO ( Prime Minister's Office) where all power is concentrated. In order to make the PMO a supra government Modi's "first act was to amend the time bar on the re-induction into government service of those who retire from regulatory bodies. This was done to facilitate the induction of a former chair of the telecom regulatory board as the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister. The aim of the time bar rule was to prevent the re-appointment of a government official into a sinecure posting after retirement, and thus curb the bureaucracy's tendency to develop an unholy nexus with its political masters." (Blog post dated 4 September 2014.)

The first victim of Modi's power drive was the Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj. She and her ministry has been kept out of every major decision pertaining to external affairs. A case in point is Modi's announcement of allowing e-visas to the Chinese. Immediately afterwards the Foreign Secretary who was also in Modi's team to China said that the e-visas were not a done deed but the idea was under consideration. This was contradicted by the PMO's officials in Beijing. Clearly the Foreign Secretary, the highest ranking Indian diplomat was not in the know of what Modi was upto.

In fact, what was Modi upto? The delay in the issuing of visas to the Chinese has been an issue between the two countries for some years. The other issue was the Chinese government issuing stapled visas to Indians from Arunachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir because Beijing regards these two states as disputed territories. Unless the border dispute between the two countries is resolved these two states will remain disputed territories in Beijing's eyes. However without insisting on China to give up its position since that issue has been under discussion between the representatives of the two countries for quite many years, India could have offered the e-visa as a quid pro quo to the Chinese for removing their policy of stapled visas. This is what a diplomat would have aimed for and it could have worked because the Chinese are keen on the India trade and simplified visa rules will be of great help. By insisting on running foreign policy from the confines of the PMO Modi missed this chance.

The cardinal rule of diplomacy is to keep talking whatever the provocation, and if the situation gets hairy, like a war, you move the talk out of the limelight. Modi does not understand this. He only knows how to make the grand gesture and to pout when the other side does not come to play. Hence between the gift to Nawaz Sharif's mother and the tantrum when the Pakistani High Commissioner followed the convention of meeting the Hurriyat leaders Modi's Pakistan policy is a still born child. The possibility of a land agreement with Bangladesh crafted by the Manmohan Singh government is the one silver lining in the foreign policy horizon. But it is too early to say "hurrah!" because this will require a constitutional amendment to become law.

In defence matters Modi has exhibited bipolar tendencies. On the one hand, he has cut down the sanctioned size of the Mountain Strike Corp, and on the other he has purchased 36 Rafale fighter jets for $6 billion. If the first was an expenditure control measure overriding the Indian Army, the second was an out of the blue decision bypassing the Defence Ministry's Acquisition Council and overruling the earlier decision to tie the purchase order to a production agreement between the French company and Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. So much for Modi's 'Make in India' policy! The rapidity of the Rafale deal and the cloud of suspicion that surrounds it could well turn out to be Modi's Bofors.

On the economic front despite the decline in the gross capital formation (GCF) as a percentage of the gross domestic product (GDP) from 36% in 2012-2013 to 28.6% in 2014-2015 we have an improved growth rate in GDP. Though Finance Minister Arun Jaitley (given his more crucial other occupation of spin doctor to the Modi government) has spun a story of great improvement to the economy, the truth lies elsewhere: the Central Statistical Organisation had revised upward the base year for calculating most indices. As a part of this process the base year for calculating the GDP is now the year 2011-2012. The inflation index too has undergone this statistical surgery. Hence GDP is up and inflation is down. But it has not impressed the RBI governor Raghuram Rajan. In a press release dated 4 March 2015, the RBI said: "the picture...of a robust economy...is at odds with still low...growth of production, credit, imports, and capacity utilisation..."

Among the good measures of the Manmohan Singh government was the Right to Education Act and the centrally funded mid-day meal scheme in schools. Even if there were leakages and other problems with these measures there intentions were laudatory and the overall end results encouraging inasmuch as the enrolment in primary schools increased. The natural next step was to increase the quality of teachers and plug the leaks. Instead what the Modi government has done is to cut the spending on teachers' training to approximately Rs. 400 per teacher per annum. The budget for higher education too has been decreased. All this has been done in the name of the higher allocation of central revenue receipts to the states recommended by the Finance Commission. Historically the commission has always recommended an increase in allocation but this has never been used by the Central government to cut its spending on social welfare measures. The Modi government has gone in the other direction.

It has cut by 3000-odd crore rupees the allocation to the National Health Mission. Re-introduced old welfare schemes under new names. Thus the Aam Admi Beema Yojana is reincarnated as the Atal Pension Yojana. The other welfare schemes are all contributory in nature and to that extent reduced to the participation of those who have a job and disposable income. The welfare scheme which actually provided for both, the previous government's Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), has been left to die a quiet death by Modi because he does not have the courage to kill and cremate it. Another key legislation of the previous government was The Land Acquisition Act which was passed with the support of the BJP. That was when it was in the opposition. In power its second ordinance were to amend this act and remove any say for the villagers whose land was being acquired. This act of aggrandisement should be seen against the fact that the proportion of cultivable land to total land availability is decreasing in the country and the majority of peasants are marginal farmers. Modi's land act will tighten the noose around their necks.

Much of the economic improvement which the Modi government is claiming as the fruit of its labour is directly traceable to the decline in oil prices. That run of luck is changing and oil prices are slowly moving up. Along with this is the great possibility of the U.S. Federal Reserve raising the interest rate. When that happens the foreign investment inflow into India will be impacted and the Modi 'magic' will come face to face with the harsh fact that slogans and tweets cannot counter economic reality.

The Modi government has made a habit of conveniently forgetting election slogans and promises that turn out to be inconvenient to realise when in power. While in the Opposition and during the last Lok Sabha election the BJP manifesto said that the power would kill the law that allows foreign investment in multi-brand retail. One year later it has done nothing. Economically speaking this is a good decision because such a step would harm the growing consumer revolution and become a setback to overall growth. The problem is that neither Modi nor his party has the courage to admit that they were wrong and the Manmohan Singh government action on this issue was correct. The BJP election manifesto had declared that within 100 days after its government came to power the black money stashed in foreign banks would be forcibly repatriated to India. Modi went one grand step further and said that this money would be divided among all Indians and each of whom would get a gift of Rs. 15,00,000 in their bank accounts. A year later all that has happened is that multitude of Indians who didn't have savings accounts opened them in state-controlled banks with rupees five from their own pockets. These five-rupee accounts are actually a managerial problem for the already cash strapped banks! Anyone who has a modicum of common sense would have known that without the due process of law and lengthy court proceedings in foreign courts this money is unlikely to reach India. But Modi is our version of the Wizard of Oz with his wires and pulleys to create an illusion.

The people are getting tired of these tricks. If any proof is required look at the statistics compiled by the Delhi-based Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. The study compared the voting percentage of the BJP in the last assembly elections in four states against the figures for the last parliamentary polls. It  found that the BJP's total votes polled declined by 1.5 percent in Haryana, -9.3 in Jammu & Kashmir, and -8.3 in Jharkhand. Maharashtra was the only state showing a small increase with 0.3 percent. That the BJP formed the government in all the states is courtesy the vagaries of our first-past-the-post electoral system. 

However the biggest challenge to the Modi rule will come from within his party, the right wing organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which controls it, and the lunatic groups that make up the family called the Sangh Parivar. Modi's cabinet contains people who own him no loyalty. There are also people outside the cabinet who see him as a political upstart. In the second year of his government they would begin to question his performance, especially the failure to fulfil the poll promises. That some of the promises like the repatriation of black money is hyperbole will not hold them back from mounting an attack. Meanwhile his lunatic brothers-in-saffron will push their agenda to the point that governance will be a problem.

To effectively govern a country which is more varied than any other in this world, the idea that one religion, Hinduism or its militant form Hindutva, can be a unifying force or a mode of thinking is infantile. Because there are many Hinduisms, not one, and to force them to fit the womb of Hindutva will be provoke an abortion. There is also another factor. The very economic growth which Modi is so assiduously championing, the 50 smart cities and a land crisscrossed by super fast highways, will either make the khaki knicker boys change to bermudas or their ideology irrelevant to the people. Sooner or later Modi will have to choose between governing the country within the limits of the Constitution, or waste time changing textbooks and whatnot to please his mentors and his brothers-in-saffron. This is Modi's dilemma. In the years to come it will worsen.

DISSENT AND DEMOCRACY

A blog post dated 15 December 2014 on the first government of Kejriwal in Delhi concluded by saying, "A zealot is a zealot is a zealot...until time and age hopefully catches up with him before it's too late." That government was a short-lived one. In the elections which followed Kejriwal's party had an impressive victory. This seemed to have gone to his head: instead of ruling in a manner that would make people's lives better Kejriwal has decided to lop off the heads of the most intelligent leaders in his party. The hit list has two founding members, both well-read and articulate, and a retired admiral who was the conscious-keeper, the Lokpal of the AAP.

For a party which is literally a new-born one the accusations and counter-accusations that have been aired by AAP members in the last few days have an old ring to them. The style and substance to them does not herald a new dawn but is a reminder that the darkness in Indian politics is all pervasive.

AAP it seems is just a re-incarnation of the other parties in the Indian political spectrum with one important difference. In the AAP the difference is that the lack of diffidence to the 'Leader' is a crime punishable with demotion and expulsion. Kejriwal & Co. should do well to remember that dissent is the life-breath of democracy. Suppressing it makes a so-called saint just one more calculating person with pretensions to overarching political power. Pelf will not be far behind.

INSANITY RULES IN GOD'S OWN COUNTRY PLAGUED BY ITS DEVILISH LEGISLATORS

The letter of the law says that a person is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.  This is the defence that Finance Minister KM Mani and the UDF Ministry has taken in the matter of what has come to be known as the 'Bar Bribery Case'. Strictly speaking at this moment there is no case in the sense that none have been filed on the allegation that Mani took a bribe to help withdraw the restrictions on sale of alcohol. Since no case has yet been filed and the matter is only at the enquiry level Mani is legally correct in refusing to resign from the UDF Ministry.  If ministers have to resign every time someone accuses them of wrongdoing, then we would have to exponentially increase the membership of the legislatures and their floor size so that we have enough MLAs and MPs to play musical chairs and enough space for the chairs!

But there is a catch. Chief Minister Oomen Chandy has conveniently overlooked  this while spouting his legal semantics. In the 'Bar Bribery Case' the allegation against Mani has not been made by a political rival or some unknown person. The accuser is the bribe giver and a leading member of the bar owners' association. This accusation is significant for two reasons. One, it has been made by a bribe giver who is as much culpable as the bribe receiver under the law. Two, it has been made by an office bearer of a trade body that is very dependent upon the largesse of the finance minister and needs to be on his good side. A psychologist would say that the accuser has a suicidal tendency; the common man would surmise that the unprecedented accusation points to the fact that the accuser is both angry and confident and hence there is a large kernel of truth in the charges against the minister.

In such a situation sheltering behind the letter of the law is the cowards' way and reeks of political opportunism. A higher law, the law of moral propriety says different: resign, clear your name, and return.

If Mani had opted for this 3-step programme he would have created an honest precedent. The problem is he is not certain that step three, 'return', is foolproof. In the event Mani returns unscathed by the scandal, there are enough claimants within his party to his ministerial chair that whoever steps in as a temp is likely to claim permanency. There is also another uncertainty: given the slow pace of the judicial process in the country there is every possibility that the Mani case will prolong beyond this ministry's term.

In these circumstances, the Left Democratic Front which constitutes the opposition should have known in its collective wisdom that its demand for Mani's resignation is unachievable. In the absence of wisdom the LDF decided to prevent Mani from presenting the state budget, an even more unachievable target. To make it achievable this meant, short of kidnapping the finance minister, the street was to be brought into the legislature. What followed was bedlam with fists, teeth, claw, and damage to property all brought into play in defence of democracy!

In normal times a finance minister reads out the budget speech, and this can take hours depending upon his inclination to verbosity. The fact of the matter is that the speech is unnecessary because what is required is for him is to table the budget papers in the legislature. Rarely has any finance minister confined himself to this simple act because speech-making is part of the genetic code of a politician. In the street fight situation prevailing in the Kerala legislature Mani was forced to cut short his speech and table the budget papers.

While the LDF's demand for Mani's resignation had a moral content its sanction of rowdy behaviour that would have got an ordinary citizen a plethora of criminal charges and fines is a sign that politics have given way to insanity. Likewise, Chief Minister Oomen Chandy's recourse to legal semantics throughout this affair reveals that he too has irretrievably lost his sense. 

Insanity rules in God's Own Country Plagued by its Devilish Legislators.

KEEP YOUR ENEMIES CLOSE BUT YOUR FAMILY CLOSER

A ruling party often gets a bloody nose in by elections. Can the  BJP  take comfort in this truism, wipe the blood off, and get on with its life?  That will be difficult. The results of the latest round of by elections are a continuation of the last two held in  Uttarakhand and Bihar. To get punched on the nose thrice in 100-odd days is not just bad luck for the BJP,  it is blow to the image of Modi, Shah & Co. who have taken over the party.  Somehow the fulsome praise of the Indian media about Modi's foreign jaunts and its coverage of his alliterative public pronouncements have had very little impact on the voters. The successive by election results have shown that Modi does not have a sure fire recipe for success. This makes Modi vulnerable, not so much in Parliament as within the Brotherhood of the Khaki Knickers and in the wider sangh  parivar.

The sangh parivar is a not a harmonious family. Though in theory its members are tied together with the rope of a common ideology, in practice they pull in different directions and fight with each other for being the standard bearer of the saffron revolution. This well suits the RSS, the paterfamilias, which can play the role of an arbiter or an instigator when the situation demands it and all the while keep its hands hidden and therefore seemingly clean.

The by election results have created such a situation. The first shot in the clan war was fired by unnamed senior leaders of the BJP who said that the defeats in UP was provoked by the unnecessary

comments on love jihad made by Swami Adityanath, the party's election campaign leader in the state. The swami whose fortune is his tongue hit back at once and said that the party lost because he was forced to confine his campaign to a few constituencies: the problem was not his tongue but the restraint placed on it.

The war now took a curious turn. Instead of addressing the unprecedented setbacks in Gujarat, UP, and Rajasthan where the BJP won just 10 seats out of the 24 contested, Modi, Shah & Co. asked the party cadre to look East and see the glorious victory of one seat each in West Bengal and Assam. However the peculiar arithmetic of making a molehill look bigger than a mountain didn't click with some in the party. Maneka Gandhi, for one, still held that love jihad is a serious issue, because in her parliamentary constituency there have been seven to eight instances of love jihad. (Here we have another example of the BJP's peculiar arithmetic: 7-8 cases of love jihad in a constituency of approximately 12-lakh plus people become a serious issue!) Jokes apart, what is actually serious is that a cabinet minister of a political party believes that love marriages (genuine or false), are more important  than other issues like public health, education, sanitation, housing, etc. to the millions in this country. The voters felt differently.

The sangh parivar's idea of India and its history, culture, and society bears very little relation to truth, or the reality of India. It is an all-male story of victimhood and triumph which even after over 50 years the BJP and the Jan Sangh ( its earlier avatar ) have been unable to sell to most Indians. The politicians in the BJP know this, but they cannot convince the sangh parivar and the demagogues within the BJP. Modi's real enemies are within his parivar and now that the by elections have revealed that his broad chest is resting on weak legs he should be careful.

Keep your enemies close but your family closer.

ONE HUNDRED DAYS OF BRAGGADOCIO AND INEPTITUDE

  

After one hundred days of braggadocio and ineptitude what has the Modi government achieved? Well, it started out by making the swearing in of the Indian prime minister an open house for all the members of the SAARC. But the bonhomie didn't last. If the two ladies ruling West Bengal and Tamil Nadu will not allow Modi to repair and strengthen relations with Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, in the case of Pakistan the blame lies entirely with Modi and his bosses in khaki shorts. Hence one saw the strange spectacle of first plying Nawaz Sharif with gifts, then announce a foreign secretary-level meeting to prepare for an Indo-Pakistan summit, and finally cancelling the event because the Pakistani envoy held the usual customary meeting with the Hurriyat leaders of  Kashmir. Within weeks the tension at the Indo-Pakistan border went from the usually bad to worse, and with it went Modi's tea, biscuits, and gifts! 

This disastrous  foray into foreign policy has its roots in Modi's lack of understanding of how foreign policy works and more importantly the torturous history of Indo-Pakistan relations. For Modi muscular postures are a substitute for a cogent foreign policy and an active foreign minister, or for that matter any minister. This subversion of the cabinet system of government where the prime minister is only primus inter pares or the first among equals, has led to a one man government in which the alpha and omega of all decision making and implementation lies with Modi. The concentration of power has a curious sideshow. For the first time in independent India's history we have two key ministries, finance and defence, under one minister from the day the government was sworn in. One wonders how this dual charge works; does the minister move from the North Block (finance) to the South Block (defence), or do the files, the file carriers, and the officials move? Whichever way the movement is, it points to either a lack of direction in cabinet-making or a dearth of leadership material in the BJP.

The poverty of political thinking within the BJP became evident in the manner it handled the issue of appointing the Leader of the Opposition. The rules regarding the allowances and perks available to this post states that a party must have ten percent of the membership of the House to be recognised as the Leader of the Opposition. This rule was made in 1977 when the duties of the Leader of the Opposition were mainly confined to participate in meetings with the Speaker and the Leader of the House. Since then the role of the Leader of the Opposition has grown. He ( or she ) is mandated to be part of the body which chooses those who will occupy constitutional posts like the Lokpal, the Central Vigilance Commissioner, and when the recent judicial appointments bills become law, the justices of the Supreme Court. Without the Leader of the Opposition the act of filling all these constitutionally important posts will be a lame and tame process that runs the risk of being declared null and void. To cling to the letter of an old rule to deny the post of the Leader of the Opposition to the Congress Party while denying the current requirement of the law for the creation of that post is both petty and politically shortsighted.

The BJP has formed the government with just 31 percent of the vote polled, while the next largest block of votes, 29 percent, is with the Congress Party. The vagaries of the first-past-the-post-system has translated the small difference in polling percentage to the brute majority of the BJP in the Lok Sabha. This does not hold in the Rajya Sabha. There the BJP will require the support of the Congress votes to pass the bills brought forward by its government. This cooperation would have been more easily possible if the Modi government had shown political sense on the question of the Leader of the Opposition. On this issue Modi should have taken a lesson from India's first Parliament where the Congress led by Nehru had far more votes than the BJP has now, and the undivided Communist Party with 30-plus votes was the largest opposition party. Nehru mindful of the importance of an actively participatory articulate opposition in the fledging parliamentary democracy that India was, gave the Communist leader AK Gopalan all the honour that was deserving of a Leader of the Opposition. That was statesmanship.

The Modi government has no such claims, much less ambitions. In fact it's first act was to amend the time bar on the re-induction into government service of those who retire from regulatory bodies. This was done to facilitate the induction of a former chair of the telecom regulatory board as the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister. The aim of the time bar rule was to prevent the re-appointment of a government official into a sinecure posting after retirement, and thus curb the bureaucracy's tendency to develop an unholy nexus with its political masters. 

If the first appointment of the Modi government was an attack on transparent governance, its latest appointment of sending to Kerala as its governor a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, has a whiff of unpleasantness to it and makes a mockery of the Indian Republic's order of precedence. But in this who is more to blame is a moot question: was it the Modi government who made the offer, or Sathasivam who couldn't refuse the attraction of the Raj Bhavan even if it is an affront to the dignity of the office he held recently.

The Modi government's economic policy is yet to be stated in a cogent and logical manner showing where we need to reach and how we will get there. Instead we have had a daily dose of alliterative slogans in a full-throated powerpoint-style presentation. A case in point is Modi's  announcement from the ramparts of the Red Fort to do away with the Planning Commission.This high news drama was followed by the damp squib of the PM asking the citizens to let him know how to replace the Planning Commission. And then what? Does he set up a commission to pick out the best idea? Does the winner get a prize? Perhaps a 'purely' vegetarian dinner with Gangajal at 7, Racecourse Road? The possibilities are endless. The issue here is not that the Planning Commission is beyond reproach, but that the Prime Minister of India has to think before he talks or, to quote a proverb, 'look before you leap'. The lesson that a set of slogans are no substitute for an action plan has yet to sink in. Take for instance, the bank account mela inaugurated by Modi. How is it any different from the loan mela of Indira Gandhi? The latter was disastrous for the banks, the former is a disaster waiting to happen. 

Fortunately the Modi government has not copied only the worst from past governments. It's first budget is a sensible continuation of the course set by the previous government. There is nothing wrong with this, unless, of course, repetition reveals just a lack of ideas. Whatever the reason continuation does create the kind of stability that is vital for economic growth. But growth itself is elusive. The increase in GDP in the last quarter is not a surprise gift of Modi. In January last the RBI had predicted this growth based on the then working of the economy. Currently the growth in the GDP is the only positive story. Inflation is still high, the manufacturing index is low, and the fiscal deficit has already exhausted 61 percent of the current year's target. This is not much of an achievement.

A STRONG LEADER HAS TO STAND ON HIS OWN FEET

Beyond the sartorial differences in the BJP leadership -- from the kurta, dhoti, and angavastram of a Murali Manohar Joshi to the abbreviated kurta and waistcoat of a Narendra Modi -- there is one piece of clothing that binds them together: the Brotherhood of the Khaki Knickers or BKK. In one crucial aspect this organisation is similar to the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in that both are adept at presenting their fundamental hatred of minorities as an outpouring of deep nationalism.

In the recently concluded general elections this ideological view and the slogans associated with it was kept in the BJP manifesto along with various socio-economic goals. However the BJP, and especially it's prime minister - designate Modi, spent more time on articulating their views on economic development rather than articulating the majoritarian communal demands. The promise of quick growth as seen in the 'Gujarat Model' clicked with the electorate, especially the large section of young first time voters whose expectations have risen dramatically in the last decade. Obviously the tide of high expectation was the result of economic growth and social welfare measures fostered by the Congress-led government; but it swept the BJP into office because of its well run poll campaign machinery, projection of strong leadership, and the anti-incumbency factor that favoured it!

Fortunately for Modi the margin of victory in the Lok Sabha is large enough to enable him to rule without the burden of coddling his coalition partners. In the Rajya Sabha the picture is different; the BJP and its partners do not have a majority and the next round of elections to the upper house, which may or not change this situation, is some time away.

Without a majority in the Rajya Sabha Modi's government will find it difficult to pass any non-financial legislation, including amendments to the Constitution. This includes repealing Article 370 that guarantees a special status to Jammu & Kashmir, a nation-wide ban on cow slaughter, and other such demands on the RSS wish list. If Modi is wise he should use the lack of votes in the Rajya Sabha as an excuse to not act on these demands that mean nothing to most Indians and which if acted upon will make Modi a BJP prime minister rather than the prime minister of a splendorous India. 

This is all the more necessary because of two factors. One, the difference between the voting percentage of the BJP and its main rival, the Congress, is not significantly wide; two, the BJP's representation is skewed heavily in favour of the Hindi belt and this makes it less than a 'bharatiya' party than what its propaganda claims. Clearly, every part of India is not equidistant from Nagpur.

The lack of votes in the Rajya Sabha gives Modi another advantage: the necessity to reach out to the Opposition to pass his programme of economic development. By engaging with the Opposition Modi can not only get bills passed but also act as a statesman rather than one more politician with a loud voice. This transformation will enable Modi to be his own master rather than just a foot soldier of the khaki knicker brotherhood.

A broad chest is not enough; a strong leader has to stand on his own feet.

THE SPOILED BRAT OF DELHI

The performance of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the Delhi elections is impressive but not unprecedented. There have been more remarkable precedents in the past. The huge victory of the Janata Party in the elections to the Lok Sabha after the lifting of the Emergency, the decimation of the Congress by the DMK in what was then known as Madras state, and the coming to power in Assam by the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), a party formed by the activists of the All Assam Students Union, are few instances that come easily to mind. All these parties came to power by concentrating on a single point plan: the Janata Party to end  Indira Gandhi's rule, the DMK to protect Tamil from the Hindi onslaught, and the AGP to keep Assam for the Assamese. The AAP too had pinned its electoral strategy on a single slogan: eradicate corruption! In the 16-point AAP manifesto the first was its, " Commitment to passing (the) Delhi Jan Lokpal Bill within 15 days of coming to power."

Obviously, the slogan was appealing. Otherwise the AAP would not have managed to get 30 percent of the votes polled as against the BJP's 33 percent and the Congress's 25 percent. For a rookie party this victory is certainly impressive. But is it a strong indicator that the anti-corruption wave sentiment has gripped the masses? The voting percentage advises caution. The votes polled by the BJP and the Congress indicate three facts: one, the vast majority  their followers (more than 50 percent of the voters) have not brought into AAP's tirade against their parties; two, they do not place a premium on AAP's promise to usher in a corruption-free Delhi; and three, the youth vote does not seem to be disproportionately in favour of the AAP.

Unfortunately, Kejriwal & Co. do not see the results this way. They have confused an impressive victory for a great one. This is not merely an outburst fuelled by a post-poll exuberance. The moral agenda that drives the AAP's leadership, to the exclusion of everything else, has made them zealots. They actually believe that taking a strong anti-corruption stance is the alpha and omega of politics and that everything else falls in between or out.

The other issues included in their manifesto - power, water, sewage, public transport, etc. - and the suggested solutions to these problem areas are based on the premise that the root cause of every problem is corruption. For example, "Delhi’s consumers have been getting inflated bills due to malpractices by (distribution companies) Discoms. AAP promises a reduction of consumers’ electricity expenditure by 50%. This will be done by ordering an audit of Discoms, rectifying inflated bills and getting electricity bills checked by independent agencies." That an ex-Indian Revenue Service officer would see an audit as a panacea for high power bills is as natural as any former General stressing the lack of discipline as the source of all problems in a company, city, or country!

Zealotry in electoral politics can take a party only so far and no further. The art of politics especially in a democracy is the practice of giving and taking, or as Churchill put it, ' the art of the possible'. At the time of writing, the Congress has indicated that it is willing to unconditionally accept an AAP government in Delhi. The AAP's zealotry will not allow it to unconditionally accept this offer. Hence the 18 conditions listed by the AAP to accept the unconditional support of the Congress. The list is  based by and large on AAP's election manifesto. 

In a democracy every party fights an election on its own manifestos and if and when one party forms a government with the support of another, then the norm is to draw up an agreed common programme. The AAP does not respect this practice. Like a spoiled brat it will only play under its own rules.

A zealot is a zealot is a zealot...until time and age  hopefully catches up with him before it's too late.